Offense Chambers as they are, are weak and they don't harm marines as much as they should, they simply just annoy them.

The problem with OCs right now are that:

1. They're only useful early game but the problem is that they're expensive early game.

2. They're not that damaging. Marines can easily walk past them without dying, even if they walk past multiple OCs.

3. They have little health so they can be taken down easily, even early game.

While OCs may be useful in some situations, in most cases dropping OCs is a waste of resources when you could easily go Lerk, Fade, drop a hive, drop RTs, or drop upgrade chambers for the team.

OCs are very weak alone, so you are practically required to build two or more OCs if you want them to really do harm or defend an area. The problem with building two or more OCs is that the resources add up and it's very expensive to use 40-50 resources to simply stall a few marines for a minute.

At 10 resources a piece(Also the resources to go gorge), they're very underpowered.

Now I know OCs are stationary turrets that are suppose to delay marines not win games for aliens but the problem right now is that it doesn't delay marines as much as it should(marines can walk past them) and they cost too much resources for what little they do.

Few changes that can make OCs more viable:

1. Increase their health and damage.

or

2. Reduce the cost to build an OC.

or

3. Add special properties to the OCs such as OCs slowing down marines when they hit or ignoring armor.

Just chiming in to say that I was on IRC during the main discussion and agree with this. Increasing their health is my favorite option, since it buffs their 'speedbump' property without changing much else. Gives skulks more time to respond.

question in the discussion was it brought up adjusting the projectile, honoustly no were on the OC is this big fat spike, bring in a shot gun projectile like really fast spikes and you will see less rambo ninja cowboys with out com support, you will also see less courner camping

but yes a buff to there health would be nice, do they recive a health buff when you get more hives?

cos as it stands now a couple of shot gun rounds can rip up a OC in the blink of a eye and the marines dont even get scratched, and that swith a active gorge attending to them

this issue has been brought up time and time again, you dont see threads on sentry guns being usless, cos they work, they stop skulk gorge and lerk movment throught the area, and add a phase gate and they shy away most fades.

only thread i have seen on sentry are they should do more damage to ono's, but honoustly i havent seen a thread on OC's doing more damage to HA's with GL's

my ramble

even though i don't play this game anymore,

learn how to kill marines with +attack, not by oc walling.

First of all this wasn't even the point of the post, before you jump ahead and post, make sure you READ the post before you reply . I know that OCs aren't supposed to win games for aliens but they ARE supposed to delay marines.

Here's what I said -


Sentry Turrets aren't supposed to win games for marines or kill Onos either but they sure work better than OCs.
Offense Chambers and Sentry Turrets are in the game for a reason, they're part of the game and meant to be used to delay attacking forces but OCs are much less useful compared to Sentry Turrets.

Pros of Sentry Turrets:
1. Turrets can kill and prevent skulks and lerks from attacking, they do a good job of that too.

2. Turrets can help "block"(or slow down) fades and onos, giving the necessary time to react.

3. Very good defense for Phase Gates when you can't have marines guarding the hive 24/7.

4. Has enough health to prevent skulks, lerks, and fades from taking the turrets down. Of course, bile bomb and Onos can easily take down the turrets very quickly but even then, turrets have enough health to DELAY the aliens long enough for marines to quickly phase into a hive and kill the aliens.

FYI: Turrets have 1.3k health while OCs have only 1k health.

5. Useful throughout the entire game, skulks and lerks will always be vulnerable to turrets while Turrets are a good blocker against Onos and Fade throughout the game.

Comments: If you played NS, you should know turrets are very useful for protecting phase gates. The new tactic nowadays(for the last two years actually) for aliens is to drop a hive and everyone movement chamber rush in.

Turrets can delay an alien's chance to kill the Phase Gate and gives enough time for marines to react to the alien's attacks and phase in. While it may not succeed everytime, Turrets do help a lot especially against the "Movement Chamber Rush".

Cons:
1. Not very damaging against Onos and Fades.

2. Can be taken out quickly if an Onos or Gorge squad starts attacking the turrets, though it delays the aliens longer than OCs delay marines, not to mention OCs can be taken out by just a lone marine.

3. Does not win games for marines.

4. Building too much is a bad idea and can be a waste of resources, so commanders need to know how many to build and where to build. Though, this isn't much of an issue as most commanders know that you should mainly build turrets just in hive locations or in double(if there is a double in the map).

Lets talk about Offense Chambers.
Pros:
1. Very useful in numbers and custom maps like ns_stargate, which you can build lots of OCs in the stargate room. Of course, OCs are really only good for certain custom maps not regular maps.

2. Might be able to take out a lone marine if OCs are used in numbers.

3. Useful when you're gorge rushing.

Cons:
Read my first post for all the cons.

Also, I'd like to add one more thing to the downsides of OCs - The OC's projectile can be blocked by other aliens and structures. This means that you cannot cluster OCs together without risking some of the OC's attacks to be blocked.

This is also true for turrets but can't be blocked as easily as OCs.

So point of this thread is to point out that OCs needs a little buff. It doesn't need a super huge buff to make OCs an unstoppable defense turret but just a few buffs to make it slightly more useful, like maybe a buff to health or reduction in cost.

OC:s are underrated if you ask me. It just takes some smart gorges and a little skulk support to make it quite difficult to kill the cactus farm. They just don't hold off against marines without skulks and healing, that's all.

So that's 2 or 3 people and 30 res to hold off a small unupgraded group of marines...

I read your post just fine. You think OCs are underpowered, and I think you're not using them correctly.

They don't need to be buffed.

1 or 2 shotties, some upgrades, 5 marines, whatever as long as they haven't got gl and you've got a few gorges to outheal them. Add a lerk and you've got a plenty of rushing marines under 75 hp distracted by oc fire, gorges and spore.

The point is that you've got extra res for some reason and you'll want to delay a group for 2 minutes until the 2nd hive goes up. You've got roughly 40 res and 1 or 2 rt:s. At that point I'd rather have the 2nd hive fade than those oc:s, but then again I'd rather have that 2nd hive than a 1-hive fade and the hive locked down. Most likely the marines are going to take another route to the hive, but that's a lot of time to spore and move the higher lifeforms in.

OCs as they are now are a serious threat. The direct damage they do isn't all that impressive. The indirect damage however, of neutralising medpacks, adding cover to gorges and skulks and removing armor is incredibly powerful.

A well placed OC can critically delay a push on the second hive. Two OCs, and that hive room is off limits unless the marines have resources enough for some serious medspam, having had enough time/resources to tech and drop a GL. Remember - alot of the strenght of a mid-game marine push is in their armor upgrade. Remove that armor and the staying power of the marine team is limited at best. Somewhat evenly skilled teams is of course implied.

Late game during a prolonged stale mated game (when they happen), OCs are a critical speed bump against heavies, and a serious threat against JPs. At the very least you force one of the marine team to drag around a GL which is otherwise useless. That's one less HMG to force your fade and/or onos away.

So no, OCs don't need to be made stronger. Do that and you risk some serious imbalances at higher tier play.

Oh wait, there is no high tier play left sorry. Ruin the game all you want Over and out.

Unless they just run past them, of course.

Unless there are those 2 smart skulks to pick out the marines rushing. The general idea is that marines either have to move through quickly, meaning good position for ambush, or start shooting the oc meaning a delay and great opportunity for a skulk rush, spore and whatever you've got. Combine 1 tick of spore dmg, 1 oc spike and 1 skulk bite and you've got the 100 dmg you need to take out a well spored a1 marine. Keeps the comm really busy medding.

Oh, and why not placing those oc:s in the hive room too. Extra cover, extra dmg and something to keep marines busy even if the skulkers get killed is always handy.

That's why it's called "static defense".

[edit] ah I just realised. My example in the post above was of course OCs placed inside the hive room.

Where are OCs and turrets normally built? In expansions (i.e. PGs and mines and/or turrets as marines, or in building hives as khaara). Outside the enemy base late game as khaara to support a siege on the marine main. Turrets when sieging a hive. Important resource spots under certain circumstances (not too unusual to keep a gorge around to drop an OC or two either in the building hive, or in say c12 on veil or on a map such as metal).

In all the above situations you place them where you know you need extra support, and where you know the enemy will have to deal with them instead of running past. They are there to either directly support the defense of the location, or to force the other team to attack another position first instead or force them to change their approach and slow them down (i.e. marines deciding to attack another more easily defended RT location instead of the one where you dropped the OC, or marines deciding to siege instead of taking direct control of the hive room).

Of course placing OCs in spots on the map the marines don't need to get into and then hold for a while is sort of pointless - they'll run past them just as you stated. But why place them there then? This is the 'curse' (or reality) of static defense. Make them cheap and effective enough to place anywhere on the map and you make them too powerful. Don't let this happen and you limit their use to only certain situations.

i get leap and then kill rines and then I onos. After it i stompspam JPs com and i evollve gorge and spam OC with my kills